Who took my Pass Certificate?

While arranging all documents for my enrollment at the Bar Council, I suddenly realised that I do not have the Pass Certificates for both my Board examinations with me. My initial reaction was that of denial and shock. After I have searched my whole house twice, I agreed that indeed I have neglected to collect my Pass Certificates from both my schools. I desperately needed my ISC Pass Certificate for my enrollment and I wondered what I should do.

Whoever I asked, told me that the school will give me an earful for being so stupid. Moreover, people were of the opinion that I might not get them after so many years. But desperation led me to try my luck with my alma maters.

I said a silent prayer and first called up The Future Foundation School for my ISC Certificate. I asked a Mr. Chandan Pal in the office whether I would get my Certificate. With a calm in his voice, he told me "Yes, You will have to come and collect it". Then I told him that I have passed out in 2004. He assured me and said that there would be no problem. I kept the phone down and silently mouthed "Hurrah"!

Next, I called up Gokhale Memorial Girls' School. We were issued our Pass Certificates along with our Mark Sheets, but it carried a wrong date. We had all returned them and were supposed to receive new ones. But I forgot to collect the new Certificate. Here, the female who had answered, was a little gruff. She told me that I will have to apply to the Head Mistress and then collect it another day. I reminded with a little trepidation that I passed in 2002. This proved to be of no consequence again. :-)

I heaved an immense sigh of relief. I am glad to think that I will get both my certificates. But in the whole process, I will do something that I have been wishing to do for quite sometime - visit my old schools once again.

Memoirs of those five years - I

Every now and then, flashes of memories come to me, inducing in me a curious state of daydream. It seems just the other day that I had jumped with euphoric joy having qualified in the merit list of NUJS. I was in the midst of my ISC Board Exams, with my most dreaded subject scheduled for the next day - Chemistry. The feeling of a dream come true is unparalled. I also knew that I had saved myself a lot of worries by cracking the first ever entrance test that I wrote. I thought that the rest of my Boards would go for a toss, but thankfully my grades were good.

Those few months after my class XII Boards were pure joy. Leisurely happiness, mixed with eager anticipation for the new life kept me quite busy. I still remember the first day - 31st May 2004. I came for the Orientation Programme with my parents, where I was too busy looking around and hence didn't pay much attention to thethen Vice-Chancellor Prof B S Chimni warning us about the heavy workload to be encountered from from day one. I was allotted room 103 in the hostel, the first of a number of such rooms made home by me. After settling me comfortably in my room, my parents returned and for the first time, I spent the night away from them.

Those first few weeks of law school were terrible. I had absolutely no idea of what was happening around me in and outside class. Law per se was till then absolutely foreign to me, having prepared almost zilch for the entrance test. So it was scary seeing those guys in class rattling off all answers, having gone through coaching from LST etc. They all seemed very confident and knowledgable about the courses and I felt that I was extremely dim-witted!

A subject which I particularly struggled with was Economics. The two semesters packed in a whole lot of fundamentals within limited class hours. Coming from a science background and having no aptitude for it, god only knows how I managed to pass.

I still remember how shocked I was to hear the teacher talk of homosexuality, romance, gay rights and what not, openly in class. Slowly, my conservative perspective changed and I stopped being shocked at the frankness of law school.

Ah! how can I forget that sad incident of having to cut my long hair short. Since the time I stopped being a complete tomboy with cropped hair, I have always worn my hair at least mid-back length. It was the most favourite of myself. The Salt Lake water of NUJS hostel wreaked havoc with it and I started losing my precious possession in no time. I got it cut shoulder length and since then I have never tried growing it any longer. Reason? Well, it so turned out that it suited me! So much for those initial pangs of loss!

And then there were those "positive interaction" sessions with seniors in hostel. It's never called ragging in NUJS; and rightly so. They were fun and great ways to know our seniors. Though I myself can't forget the fact that I was asked to sing Kokhon tomar asbe telephone infront of everybody. Surprisingly, all of them endured it very bravely :-)

As I write this now, I remember how I asked a teacher which year she belonged to! She must have been extremely pleased to know that at her age, she looked like a student!

My first semester result was a blow. I didn't expect very high marks, considering my various distractions, but when people around me generally got much more, I felt a little sad.

The first year also gave me some great friends. It's strange how I interacted with most of my batchmates but struck a chord with only a few. Even fewer of them remained my friends for the rest of the five years of my stay in college and I will always treasure them.

The best part of my first year was thefact that we completed the first set of all five batches in NUJS. It feels great to be a part of both the start and the continuation and the end of an era.

At the end of this post, I just feel I relived the whole of 2004-2005 in a span of 20 minutes.

Introspection

Its surprising

How everything has gone wrong

And I know that I have been a mistake

All that I do and say are my faults

And its too late to rectify

When friends are they who have left me

To bring a change in me

Leaving me to wonder where I went wrong

Why do I fail to judge people?

And end up so horribly bruised?

Why am I misunderstood so much?

And then blamed for what I never meant

May be all that I believe in

Are just illusions

I hurt people and end up hurting myself manifold

But I still remain the heartless bitch

Who plays with emotions

And makes fun of others

But then why am I the one

Who is always betrayed

And vilified and maligned?

If I am asked to change today completely,

Leaving behind the 'me' of all these years,

Does this mean that my life till now is a mistake?

I just wonder now

How long can I endure the fact

Of being the most flawed person on earth?

31st May 2008...to be remembered for days to come

We were all waiting for the day to come - 31st May 2008. It was going to be our last day in Bombay and of our two-and-half months long internship - and an ending to our homesickness.

We also welcomed this day in style. On our last day in office i.e 30th May, we collected our respective certificates and cheques and met up in the Chowpatty Beach. We sprawled over hired mats, savoured pav bhaji and generally gossipped till mid night when the policemen came to drive people out of the beach.

I had a few plans for the morning of 31st. I badly wanted to visit the National Gallery of Modern Art for the photography exhibition of Raghu Rai. It was my 3rd photography exhibition in Bombay and the one most eagerly awaited. But before that, I joined my friends for a breakfast at Kyani's Cafe and was left astounded by the experience.

Highly recommended by our foodie friends, we reached this 100 years' old Irani Cafe with lots of expectations. Sadly, whatever we ordered for was not available. So our dreams of an authentic Iranian breakfast were dashed to pieces. Add to that a quirky waiter who, when asked why we had been served two pieces of sheekh kabab instead of four pieces of shammi kebab, he replied totally nonchalantly 'do ko kaat lijiye, chaar ho jayega!!!' Now I dont know whether he was just being ignorant of the fact that he has misunderstood our order or was trying to be plain and simple cheeky.

The same waiter also had the audacity (or, innocence?) to bring a chocolate cake and a chocobar icecream when asked for 'chocolate cake with chocolate icecream!!! He surely has some more learning to do in the trade of waiting and serving.

That apart, I liked the sausage, kulfi and the Irani chai served in stained cups (whew).

With our stomachs full, we headed towards NGMA in Colaba. I fell in love with the Gallery and more so, with the collections on display. I always wanted to see the masterpieces of Raghu Rai, like his photographs of Satyajit Ray, Mother Teresa, Bal Thackeray, Bhopal Gas Tragedy, naga sadhus at Kubh Mela, the classic old man with child photo and especially his photos depicting my most favourite city Kolkata. It was a memorable morning, rounded off by a documentary on the man himself.

Our next POA was having lunch at Rajdhani Thali. We have heard a lot about its lunch thali which have been recommended by the same foodie friends. We still had some faith left in them and so decided to check it out.

What we were totally unprepared for was the pocket pinch. The thali was priced at Rs. 190/- plus taxes per person! and it consisted of Gujrati vegetarian fare. The hard core non-veggie in me could not believe that she would have to shell out so much for something which had no meat!

We were promised unlimited supply of authentic (again!) Gujarati fare and since they had started serving the startersthe moment we sat down, we had no choice but to accept our fate.

[Inportant rule in restaurant business: Start serving as soon as the customers are seated. If it is something like thali and the customers are as idiotic like we were, they would never refuse it in fear of being dubbed rude or unsavvy]

Well, I won't say I didn't like the food. The problem with it was we never understood the names of half the things on our thali, despite asking the waiters repeatedly. And beyond a point, we could not act like fools any more than what we already were made out to be.

The most important part of the deal was 'unlimited' serving. We all went on a mission of stuffing ourselves like crazy, only to make good of the 190 bucks. But trouble started when we decided we have had enough. The over-friendly and over-hospitable waiters decided to be over-nice and continued piling food on our thalis. They kept on saying 'Ek aur lijiye na', 'Bas ek aur, mere khatir (!), 'Yeh akhri phulka, Ek aur vada' and we kept on nodding our heads profusely in negation. But everytime we lost infront of their persuasiveness (like a cute waiter saying 'ek aur mere khatir'). So we stopped eating for ourselves and started eating to please them. As a result, we were over-stuffed beyond our capacity. But thankfully that didn't deter us from relishing the best Shreekhand I have ever tasted.

Post-lunch, mobility and money became a problem. We withdrew enough cash to see us through our train journey back home. And then we walked back to our hostel to shed some of the extra weight gained in the past hour. Our tickets were of Jnaneswari Express, which was due to depart at around 9-30 pm from Lokmanya Tilak Station in Kurla. So I had declared that we all should leave by 5 pm, so as to reach comfortably and finish our dinner before the train arrived.

Four of us managed to fit in our huge luggages on top and the boot of the fiat cab and started a 2 hour long journey towards the station. We reached at about 8 pm and began our routine haggle with the porter. It was then that I happened to glance at the screen and saw that the departure time for Jnaneswari Express was "20:30 pm"! Again it took some 5 seconds to dawn on us idiots that 20:30 means 8:30 and not 9:30 as we had previously thought. We quickly checked our tickets and saw that they always gave the correct timings, god only knows how and why we presumed that the departure time was 9:30 pm!

Having realised that we had only 30 minutes to board the train, we ran the entire length of the train along with the porter (who got the price he was asking for) to reach our compartment right in the begining of the platform. Of course, our plan of boarding the train first and then capturing all the free space beneath the berths for our luggages had gone waste. We could barely fit in our plus-size suitcases and had to engage in a verbal duel with a Bengali family who refused to adjust even a bit. According to the man, "I had adjusted enough when I was a student, now that you are students, you should also learn how to adjust"!!!!! The other co-passenger was a young guy, again Bengali, who alone had some 4 pieces of luggage with him because he was shifting. No amount of pleading and fluttering of eyelashes by four young girls helped with any of them.

By this time, two of my friends had bought some puri-sabji for dinner and once the train started, we settled down to eating and discussing how close we had come to missing our trains. "Eventful day", somebody said. But the best (or, I should say worst) was yet to come.

We had got e-tickets for ourselves and the friend, in whose name they were booked, was carrying the attested photocopy of her voter ID card. She didn't ask for her original from home in fear of losing it. Now, that was the biggest and costliest mistake, as we realised when the ticket cheker declared our tickets as INVALID.

"Invalid?" we asked dumbfounded. "What does that mean?"

"It simply means that since the identity of the master passenger is not proved by the photocopy of the voter ID card, this e-ticket holds no value. You have to pay the prices of the tickets right now."

"Rs. 1500/- per ticket? We are not even carrying that much cash on us!"

"Then get down at Bhusaval."

Now that was the last straw. We tried all sorts of arguments - ethical arguments on the lines of how-can-you-make-4-young-girls-get-down-at-an-unknown-station-at-11-in-the-night, legal argument like its-nowhere-written-that-attested-photocopy-is-not-valid (bad argument, never even try) and logical ones like why-can't-we-pay-at-Howrah? etc. Well, of course none of them held ground since we were at fault. But what was irritating was the unrelenting attitude of the TT and the way he treated us like criminals. Read a story here where a similar incident had happened. It raises similar concerns about this stupid rule of indentity verification.

A frantic call was made to one of our friends, whose uncle was in the Western Railways. It so turned out that he was also boarding the same train from Kalyan, and was with his uncle at that moment. We were instructed to keep the TT busy till 9-30 pm when the train would reach Kalyan station.

Our knight in shining armour came in the form of the uncle, who boarded the train to persuade the TT and remained in it till 11 pm! After hours of coaxing and cajoling, that beast of a TT agreed to let us off. He told our friend that during subsequent checkings, the identity will not be verified again in all probability. But in case some smartass TT asked for it, she should pretend to have lost it. It would not matter too much since the first TT had already verified it.

We did sleep soundly through the night. But another moment of agony arrived with the arrival of the second TT next morning. Our heartbeats stopped the moment he stood before us and asked for the ticket. But luckily for us, he didn't ask for indentity verification. It seemed as if we were bloody criminals, travelling without tickets.

So much within a span of 24 hours! May be my bad luck, carried from Delhi, had affected all of us here. But most remarkable was what our friend (whose uncle saved us) remarked wisely before the TT in order to impress him (or may be to distance himself from fools like us) "Main apna chaddi aur voter ID card kabhi nahi bhoolta hoon!" Whew! How gross! and the TT nodded in agreement!

______________________________________________

Small trivia: Among the four of us, one was travelling on someone else's ticket, to avoid the hassle of cancelling the same, and another was a Bangladeshi passport holder. Had these facts come out before the TT then, we would have been history!

Bombay : Sanjay Gandhi National Park et al

It took us a lot of will power and collective strength to get over our office fatigue and laziness to set off for Boriveli at around 7 am one Saturday. A 45-minute train journey and a short auto ride later, we found ourselves at the gates of the Sanjay Gandhi National Park. A long walk ensued, which brought us face to face with a herd of lovely deer. We bought tickets for the lion and the tiger safari and boarded a bus, whose windows were all covered with wire nets. The safari was of extremely short duration and showed us tigers in cages!!! The fact that the lions were freely roaming reminded us that we were not in a zoo but a National Park.

After satisfying our mid-day hunger with chips, fruits and cold drinks, we took a bus to the Kanheri Caves, situated within the National Park. There are 109 Buddhist caves, cut by hand from the living rock of a 1500 feet high ravine in the 2nd to the 9th century AD. Inside the caves, there were colossal Buddhas, more than 20 feet tall, an 11-headed Bodisattva and even a nagaraja, an ancient pre-Buddhist serpent king guarding the most famous Buddhist chaitya hall

"Kanheri" is derived from the word 'Khaneri' meaning black mountain. The presence of these caves prove a well-organised existence of a Buddhist establishment, with connections to other trade centres like Sopara, Kalyan, Nasik, Paithan and Ujjain.

It was another Saturday morning, when we decided to visit the famous Siddhivinayak Temple in Dadar. It was a long queue before the temple and when we finally managed to reach inside, we were whisked away before we even realised! We could not even see properly, the smiling face of Lord Ganesha, who is depicted her with four arms bearing a lotus, an axe, modakas and a garland of beads, flanked by his consorts Siddhi and Riddhi!

Another place of interest which I always planned to visit but could never make it is the Haji Ali shrine. This time I was determined not to miss it, more so because I used to pass it every day on my way to office. One Sunday, I reached the Haji Ali Juice Centre, famous for selling a glass of juice for Rs. 100/- (!) and started my walk towards the island, where the shrine is situated. The walkway, which connects the shore to the shrine is the only way to reach it and can be used only during low tides. The structure inside has white, typical Mughal domes and minarets.

There are two local legends which claim to trace the Hazrath Haji Ali's antecedents. One story has it that Haji Ali was a rich, local businessman who gave up materialism after a visit to Mecca and then took up meditation. Another legend says that he was an Afghan mystic who lived and meditated here. He specifically ordered that after his death , his casket should be cast off into the sea off the shore of what is today Pakistan. However, the casket surfaced intact at the spot where the shrine is today.

The whole place was crowded and with people of all religion. I even overheard a man talking over the phone saying "Main Haji Ali Mandir mein hoon!!!" What he was doing there was spending a few private moments with his lady love, sitting on the rocks of the island. And I wonder who he was speaking to over the phone.

I missed out on going to Alibaug, Matheran and Lonavla with my friends because I was rotting in Delhi at that point of time. But I am sure there is a second time.

Summer of '08 Part II - Bombay

The latter part of my summer this year was spent interning at a law firm in Bombay. I put up with my friends at the Pandita Ramabai Girls' Hostel on Grant Road, a few minutes away from Chowpatty Beach and Marine Drive. Though it was not exactly luxury, but coming from my Delhi hostel, it was the best that I could ask for.

My office was situated at Worli Sea face, and just beside the sea! The associates used to take their smoke breaks enjoying the cool sea breeze! Even we, interns used to spend some 15 minutes everyday in the evening there, relaxing and soaking in the scenic atmosphere.

This was the first time I was staying in Bombay for some 5 weeks. Last time I was here as a tourist for just 1 day, I had spent it by visiting places like Taraporewala Fish Aquarium, Hanging Garden, Iskon temple etc (!). So this time, I was determined to spend my time doing more fruitful sight seeing, well apart from my internship.

After-office hours were usually spent by all of us in Marine Drive, if we happened to get off early at 8 pm. It was so spectacular that the sleeping poet in me woke up just in time to pen a few verses on it. Even every weekend, if we were in the city, we would invariably be in Marine Drive, followed by dinner at new places.

We tried out the 5 Spices outlet at Fort, a wonderful Chinese restaurant and absolutely loved it. 5 of us ordered just 2 main courses but still we ended up over eating! And giving the delectable desert spread here a miss is almost a sin. Another of our favourite place was the roadside joint Bare Mia. I tried out beef for the first time there only because it was the cheapest on the menu and didn't like it too much. It used to be crowded always, with people dining on the pavement and even inside their cars!

We had also planned on a Chocolate Avalanche experience in Cafe Mocha. When we finally managed it, what we still remember is the bill and not the heavenly taste of chocolate! We were charged 31% tax on the total amount, mentioning just 'local taxes' and without a breakup! It burnt so deep a hole in our pockets that we had to go for a light dinner that day.

In comparison, Gaylord at Churchgate proved to be superb value for money, where we had our pick from an amazing choice of croissants, cakes and pies.

But our all-time favourite remains the Naturals, an ice cream parlour on the Marine Drive which serves ice cream prepared naturally from real fruits. The mango and the kala jamun flavours are must tries here. We also dropped in at Italiano Gelato on Marine Drive but being poor students with light pockets, could not savour their variety of flavours much! But we did get a taste of heavenly dark chocolate there!

We also checked out the famous Cafe Mondegar and Cafe Leopold's at Colaba Causeway, but not being beer lovers, didn't find them any special. Food here was ok and we usually preferred other places like Cafe Ideal on Marine Drive due to an overwhelming number of hippie foreign tourists in Mondy's and Leopold's.

Another of my favourite place was Pizzeria on Marine Drive. I tried both the stuffed and the thin crust pizza there and found them absolutely mouth-watering! Someone rightly told me that their pizza was the best. I loved them more so, because I did not have to pay a penny for them! Mt friends were treating me on both the occassions :-)

Though I swear by Phuchka and Golgappas, the Panipuri of Mumbai could not win my heart. And despite being in the danger of being bashed up by the Maharashtra NavNirman fanatics, I must say that the famed Bada Pav of Bombay seemed very ordinary to my palate.

And I must also say that I have never had such horrible and pathetic tasting biriyani anywhere. We didn't try it at an expensive place but even in normal restaurants, it was always a mistake to order biriyani. And coming from Calcutta, where roll is considered a staple junk diet by all, I could not digest the roll here, being offered at a price of Rs. 90/- and that too, in a wrap made of wheatflour!

In conclusion, the city just could not satiate the foodie in me. However, for a different opinion, this post is a must-read.

The Summer of '08 [definitely, not the best days of my life]

How many things can go wrong within a span of two and half months? One, Three, Five, Ten?...well, start counting as I reminisce what happenned to me this summer of '08.

It was an all-important summer for me. I had just finished my 4th year at law school and was slated to start my corporate internship at two law firms. It was going to be my first major corporate internship and my recruitment chance was going to depend majorly on these summer internships. Moreover, I was to make that choice of which law firm I intend to finally end up at.

My first internship was at one of the leading Delhi law firms, which was to start exactly 4 days after my end-semester exams ended. Barely out of my exam hangover, there I was, in a Rajdhani Express, all alone, saying a tearful good bye to my parents, whom I was not going to meet for the next two and half months! After an extremely boring train journey (I mean, without any cute co-passenger) I landed up the next day in Delhi, my most favourite city after Kolkata.

My accomodation was already fixed at the Shakti Young Women's Hostel at 7/17, East Patel Nagar. My dad had previously gone to Delhi for official work and had paid in advance to reserve a room for me there. The owner Mrs Shakti Ahuja turned out to be a matronly figure with a kind face. Little did I know then, that I was to experience first hand and much to my misfortune, the age old adage, which warns that 'looks can be deceptive'.

As soon as I landed up at the Hostel, I was asked to pay up the rest of my charges, which turned out to be Rs. 7,500/- in all. I requested her to let me settle in my room, but she refused to budge. It was already 2 pm and I was dying for a shower and lunch. So I paid her up and followed the servant to my room.

My room for the next 5 weeks turned out to be on the top of the roof and extremely tiny with barely space for a single bed and an almirah. The loo was the dirtiest that I have ever seen in my life and beat the one that I had encountered the previous summer in a government hostel in Delhi. The inmate of the neighbouring room also warned me about frequent thefts that occur in the hostel and advised me to keep my stuff always locked. She also asked me to verify with the owner whether the facilities that are being provided to me are covered within the amount paid, since she is known to extract extra fee for electricity bill, mattress, gas etc, even after promising that these would be provided for free!

Now, I was almost at the verge of going into a depression. I already knew that I had to provide my own food, my room was the size of a servant's quarter in any affluent Delhite's house and I had discovered that there were just 3 dirty loos for some 40 odd women!

Added to my woes was the fact that it was the Holi week in Delhi, which means random people would throw water balloons from their houses, bikes, cars etc at me anywhere on the street. I learnt the art of navigating my way through the maze of raining water balloons to and from my office for one whole week, without once getting drenched. Really, the Delhiwallahs have a strange and pervert sense of humour when it comes to Holi.

I have always been a regular once-in-the-morning-and-once-in-the-evening tea person. If I went without my cups of tea, I used to end up with a headache. During my stay in Delhi, I realised that habits are not unbendable, since I used to have my first cup of tea from the vending machine in office at 9:30 am. I learnt the all-important lesson to forsake my favourite cup of freshly brewed tea and much more in that one summer.

My office was an amazing place and the sole reason why I didn't lose my sanity in that hell hole of an acco. Every day, I used to wake up, get ready and immediately start off for office at 8:30 am, though my office hours did not start before 10 am. I spent exactly 15 minutes in commuting by Metro and used to spend the initial hours by checking mail and other personal stuff. My offical out-time was 7:30 pm but I tried to be as late as possible so that I could eat and go off to bed fast. Wow! what a daily routine!

Weekends were spent in going to a certain book seller at Connaught Place, who would sell me books at a cheap price and also return half of the consideration if I returned the book later. Thanks to him that I was never bored for a moment. Thriller, romance, philosophy, comedy - he provided me with a variety of books, which were the best companions I could ever ask for in my moments of solitude.

But my worst days in Delhi came in sucession in one particular week of my stay. One day, during lunch hour, I dropped my phone just outside my office, which plummetted some three storeys below, landed in the basement and broke into two. I went numb with shock, especially because it was my second phone and I never thought I would be able to recover it from where the pieces lay. When a helpful man got it for me, I found that the LCD screen has gone kaput. I forgot all about my lunch, rushed to Gole Market for servicing, the went again after office to collect it and, in the process, burnt a hole in my pocket.

In the same week, I lost my Titan Raga watch in the Delhi Metro, while commuting in the morning. It was a gift from my dad for last year's birthday. The loss was immense and something that I mourn even today.

If I thought that it was the end of my losing phase, I was sadly mistaken. On 14th April, which also happens to be the first day of the Bengali year, I returned to my hostel and found that two of my office wear - a formal shirt and a formal skirt have been stolen from inside my room through the open window. They were the best and the most expensive that I had. It also meant that I had less option for the rest one and half months of internship. Since then whenever I remember my loss, I always curse that thief in all possible language and manner. I hope she loses all her clothes, or at least the favourite ones, or something worse and more sinister than this. I wish!

After this incident, I tried to get a refund of the hostel charges for the rest of the month so that I could shift to a better place. But auntyji absolutely refused to part with a single paisa. Her motto is once money goes into her tijori it will never come out. The options were to stay on or move out with a humongous loss of money. I had to choose the first, despite having seen the conditions of that hostel. There was no security at night and any body was free to come in and go out. The eldest son of auntyji had been accused of raping a hostelite some 10 years ago and the case is still sub judice! Almost every one complained of the methods that auntyji employed to extract extra money from the girls. She lied, went back on her word, refused to reason and did everything possible under the sun to harass the hostelites. But still I stayed on, only to save the money that had already gone into waste.

By this time, my luggage has lightened considerably. With my watch and clothes gone, I have already lost goods worth five grand. I was hoping to finish off my stay in Delhi without any more losses or mishap. My loneliness had become unbearable by then. I was waiting ferevently to reach Bombay where my friends were interning. But little did I know that the worst was saved till the last moment.

I finished my internship on a Monday and was to leave the city on Saturday. On the last day, I was invited by one of my friends and went straight from my office to stay over at her place. The next day, I was to meet another friend of mine at Sarogini Nagar for shopping. At about 3 pm, I returned to my room and found that my room has been broken into and my suitcase and bag missing! Luckily most of my stuff were in the almirah, but the most important thing - my train ticket to Bombay was in my suitcase.

I still remember those moments of discovery of the theft, when I felt absolute helpless and desperate. The only person I could resort to was one of my dad's colleague, whose office was at nearby Karol Bagh. He arrived soon and had a talk with auntyji. She was difficult and refused to take any responsibility for such action. I threatened to go to the police, but she ignored me with the confidence of a person who's used to bribing the police for her son's case. However, uncle was allowed upstairs for a thorough check of the hostel, accompanied by the servant Chhotu.

May be it was God's grace or Uncle's ingenuity, that both the luggage could be recovered from under an old mattress in the adjoining roof top. My suspicion strongly pointed towards Chhotu, who sleeps in that roof every night, but unfortunately I had no conclusive proof. Uncle did not think it was safe for me to stay on in that place any more and requested me to shift to his place for the remaining 4 days of my stay.

My previous stay in Delhi last summer was simply amazing in contrast to what I faced this year. Almost everything starting from my acco, food, daily commuting, weekends, people etc went wrong this time. May be it was time for me to learn that all is not rosy away from home. May be nothing is easy if one has to survive alone in a ruthless city like Delhi, where people are waiting for any opportunity to harm you. I love my independence, but beyond a point, it does get lonely and frustrating. I always knew what I was getting into, but I never imagined that it would end up so wrong. I was immensely glad when it was time to head towards Bombay.

Much Ado about Swimming!!

During my attempt at learning how to swim, I have to keep in mind the following things:

1. I have to keep my body absolutely loose

2. I have to keep my eyes open under water

3. I have to paddle with my legs continuously

4. I have to breathe out into the water

5. I have to rotate my hands without stop

6. I have to lift my head out of water to breathe in air at regular intervals

No doubt, I am struggling to do all these things simultaneously :-( My sincere thanks to my trainer Smita, who has shown loads of patience with me and occassionally also a very sharp tongue!

Evenings at Marine Drive

Late in the evening, I sat

With a few close mates,

Silent, just staring at

The view beyond so great,

Of splashing waves below

And a dark blue night,

And yonder I saw

The city lit up so bright,

I sang out loud happily

Popping nuts and more,

Staring at the turbulent sea

And its endless shore,

Enjoying the blank feeling

After a long, hard day

Gruelling, but still exciting

My evenings at Bombay.